Various technologies have been used to detect a touch input on a display area. The most popular technologies today include capacitive and resistive touch detection technology. Using resistive touch technology, often a glass panel is coated with multiple conductive layers that register touches when physical pressure is applied to the layers to force the layers to make physical contact. Using capacitive touch technology, often a glass panel is coated with material that can hold an electrical charge sensitive to a human finger. By detecting the change in the electrical charge due to a touch, a touch location can be detected. However, with resistive and capacitive touch detection technologies, the glass screen is required to be coated with a material that reduces the clarity of the glass screen. Additionally, because the entire glass screen is required to be coated with a material, manufacturing and component costs can become prohibitively expensive as larger screens are desired.
Another type of touch detection technology includes surface acoustic wave technology. One example includes the Elo Touch Systems Acoustic Pulse Recognition, commonly called APR, manufactured by Elo Touch Systems of 301 Constitution Drive, Menlo Park, Calif. 94025. The APR system includes transducers attached to the edges of a touchscreen glass that pick up the sound emitted on the glass due to a touch. However, the surface glass may pick up other external sounds and vibrations that reduce the accuracy and effectiveness of the APR system to efficiently detect a touch input. Another example includes the Surface Acoustic Wave-based technology, commonly called SAW, such as the Elo IntelliTouch Plus™ of Elo Touch Systems. The SAW technology sends ultrasonic waves in a guided pattern using reflectors on the touch screen to detect a touch. However, sending the ultrasonic waves in the guided pattern increases costs and may be difficult to achieve. Detecting additional types of inputs, such as multi-touch inputs, may not be possible or may be difficult using SAW or APR technology.
Additionally, current touch detection technology cannot reliably, accurately, and efficiently detect pressure or force of a touch input. Although prior attempts have been made to detect pressure of touch input by measuring the relative size of a touch input (e.g., as a finger presses harder on a screen, area of the finger contacting the screen proportionally increases), these attempts produce unreliable results when a hard stylus or different sized fingers are used. Therefore there exists a need for a better way to detect an input on a surface. Once force or pressure of a touch input can be reliably detected, user interface interaction utilizing force or pressure may be provided.